If you're cheap (like me) you can find some pretty good freeware modelers.
Wings3D is an excellent poly modeler, which has a quick learning curve and an intuitive interface (better than most the stuff people pay $$$ for in that regard.) I'm the most familiar with this one. It also features a basic UV mapping feature, and exports readily to commonly used model formats (.3ds, .obj, .vrml)
Anim8or has a modeler, but it's quirky. It does some nice rendering and animation though. Likewise it can import and export to common 3d formats.
Blender is another one I've heard of (some people like it, but I've never used it), and there's Metasequioa (ditto.)
www.wings3d.com
www.anim8or.com
www.blender.org
www.metasequoia.org
Hopefully the links should work and send you to the respective sites. If not, try looking up the programs on a search engine. I'm pretty well experienced with Wings, if you have any questions feel free to ask. Dunno much about the others though.